Another hamfest find...this machine was sitting in a sad looking pile of PC/XT machines and some clones. It didn't look like much of a gem itself, but I stopped to inspect the type-model number and grabbed it from that pile of ruin quickly after seeing the A21 type.

The A21 is the last generation of the Model 70, with a 25MHz 386 CPU fitted onto a "cardplex" that fits into the system board. This same board can also take a 486 CPU and some systems came with that preinstalled instead. Since these machines were impressively powerful and expensive at the time, not a lot of them are to be found just sitting around...and the 486 version is supposed to be the first-ever released 486 powered computer.

The machine looked positively awful on the outside, but the insides (what really matters) turned out to be undamaged and--unlike the better looking machines I picked up--this little 70 started right off with no problems when I first turned it on. The casing looked like it had been dumped in the mud, maybe had a little blood on it and plenty of dirty black streaks.

I had no luck cleaning it with the regular batch of glass cleaner and pumice cleaner, so I just pulled all the circuitry out and threw the casing into the dishwasher. As you can see in the picture, the machine came out looking brand new...a remarkable recovery!